


The Season of Scars

by hitlikehammers



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Captain America: Reborn (Comics), Except that No One Really Dies in Marvel, Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America (Comics), Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Presumed character death, Reunions, The Death of Captain America (Comics), True Love, cap!bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 06:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5529941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Take me to him</i>, he’d asked. And yeah, maybe there are miracles. Maybe he’s better at this praying gig than he thought.</p><p>Because that voice, on the breeze—so long imagined, so long <i>needed</i>; that voice, on the breeze. </p><p>Bucky’s heart goddamn <i>stops</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Season of Scars

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone who read [the fluffy Holiday fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5501159/chapters/12707765) over here and saw on tumblr where I said it was fluff and therefore balanced out the angsty Holiday fic I also wrote?
> 
> Yeah. This is the angsty one.
> 
> But it ends happily! Because it's the Holiday Season!
> 
> Or something. Yep.
> 
> Heavily influenced by (and titled from the lyrics of) [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E20PpEsU3oE).

“Long time, punk.”

Bucky’s body aches, even though it shouldn’t, even though the capacity to hurt should have been whittled out of his DNA decades ago. He doesn’t groan as he settles against the cold, folds his limbs and lets the frost seep into his bones. He wonders if maybe the serum can’t touch the things in the heart. He wonders if maybe the hurt that lives there is big enough to weigh his muscles down, to wear them into forgetting how to heal. How to _want_ to heal.

He breathes in deep. It’s not even that cold outside; doesn’t even feel like winter. The chill’s inside.

Fuck.

He leans his head against the steadfast outline at his back; breathes in deep.

“Right, right, fine,” he says softly, given his whole frame permission to sink into the etch of all he is, all he was, and all he’ll ever hope to be or know. “A week’s not long, not really.” He laughs; hollow: “Specially not by our terms.”

Bucky lets his head fall back, lets his neck strain against every swallow, ever idle pump of his long-withered heart.

“Felt long, though,” he reaches a hand out; grasps. “Missed you.”

He gasps around the pressure clustered at the base of his lungs, the back of his throat. 

“Always miss you.”

He breathes out slow. It’s too early to be fighting a breakdown. Not fucking yet.

“Is it because time’s different for us?” he asks, turns to stare, to question the starry night beyond what eyes can see, what light pollution robs because they live among thieves, this world, this life, this wanting. 

“Is that what it hasn’t,” Bucky swallows again, and fuck, but it hurts; “that I don’t feel...”

He focuses on his breathing: in, and out, and in. There’s no sense in giving into it, but then.

There’s no sense in fighting it, either.

“Heals all wounds and shit,” Bucky’s chuckle isn’t hollow, now; it’s filled with the wet, hateful bleed of grief. “That’s bull, y’know.”

Bucky’s hands tremble as he slumps further into the weight at his back, fumbles in his pocket for his lighter, his pack of Luckies. 

“Sorry,” Bucky apologizes, even as he lights up. “Know you hate this.” He gestures with the cigarette, the smoke following: ephemeral.

It looks, feels more real than Bucky does. Than Bucky has in too fucking _long_

“Nerves are killing me, though,” Bucky tries to explain it, tries to make excuses for the stick between his lips. “Still ain’t used to any of this. Still can’t,” he exhales, snubs out the cigarette on a whim before crossing his arms and bending his body into the space it provides, dark enough to hide there as he speaks to the ground. “I’m still not…”

Bucky shakes his head, and the knees of his worn-out jeans are shit at absorbing the unbearable loss that leaks from his eyes; at taking it from him and making him lighter.

He only feels all the more weighed down.

“I been tryin’, Stevie,” Bucky gasps, stares up again at the vague-greyness of the sky, pleading and burning and so full of a longing that he can almost feel his soul—whatever’s left of it, whatever’s not torn enough to be no better than filth, than dirt; he can almost feel his soul reaching up to the clouds. 

“I been tryin’ so goddamn hard, but I,” Bucky shakes his head, and the cloud blur in his vision.

“But I ain’t you. I ain’t _good_ ,” Bucky gathers his courage, glances over his shoulder.

“Is that why you wanted me to take up the shield?” he asks, and he wants it to be an accusation, but he can’t make it go there. He can’t reach that _far_. “To make me good?”

He chokes on how absurd that it. What fucking worthless _shit_ that is. Him. _Good_.

“‘Cause that’s not how it works. That’s not how any of it works and fuck, _fuck_ , but I want it to be,” Bucky knows this is the end, it always ends in tears and a worthless haze that he regrets for the pathetic display of it; regrets for how much it disgraces what once was, or else, what once had the possibility to _be_. 

When he starts babbling, and starts leaning to the point where he can’t even hold himself up: he knows that’s it.

“For your sake. Not for any of these other fuckers. Not even for all the innocent people. I don’t wish ‘em bad things, not ever, Stevie, but I can’t, I don’t—”

Bucky choking on his own breath, now, and that’s bullshit. That’s fucking _bullshit_.

He’s better than this.

Except he’s not. Not anymore.

“I try for you,” Bucky whispers, hand grasping harder, trying to make the truth tangible. Trying to write it somewhere undeniable. “You’re still the only heart I got, Stevie, even though, even now, even…”

The crack his grasp causes is audible. The crumble of stone in his palms is the last straw.

The real last straw.

“Fuck,” ‘Bucky says, and freezes halfway between brushing away the fragments of stone, and wiping at his eyes; instead, he takes his rock-powdered hands and flattens them to his chest and breathes, like they told him. Holds the only heart he’s got that’s not _enough_.

“ _Fuck_.”

And ain’t that the truth. Goddamnit.

Mostly, he breathes until the air tastes bitter, tastes sour like milk and burnt like Hell. 

“Good wreaths, this year,” he comments idly. “They’re not supposed to know you’re here, but it’s all big brother and shit, you know how it is,” and it’s true. The body had been beyond anyone’s control in the end: but Bucky had demanded that Steve’s uniform be burned, and his sketchbook with it—two halve of a whole man, of Bucky’s whole universe—and the ashes interred next to the Rogers’, in Brooklyn. 

“They send you one here, and then one to the public memorial at Arlington.” Bucky only knows that from hearsay, though. He’s never been.

He only comes here.

“When can I stop, Steve?” His voice breaks as he turns, as he reaches out and traces Steve’s name in the headstone. “When can I come and be with you? When will enough be enough? When will the universe let us stay together, and just, just...” He chokes, he cna’t _breathe_ —

“Just _be_?”

Bucky’s shaking with silent sobs; he cannot help it.

He _will not_ help it. Not when this is where he lives. Not when _this_ is the loss he bears.

“Steve,” he whispers. “God, Stevie,” and Bucky leans his cheek against the cold stone, lets his tears smooth the lines of Steve’s name, like enough of Bucky’s heart wrung out could erase it, make it illegible.

Turn back time. 

He cries, like that, until there’s nothing left. Until the bells of a church nearby, near their own from way back when but not, not that one, because that one’s gone.

So much is fucking _gone_.

But he cries until the bells toll: midnight.

“Don’t laugh, okay?” Bucky says softly, strokes a fingertip down the grave marker. “You wouldn’t, you never do, I know. You never have, but I…” he trails off, feels the cheek against the stone heat up.

“Night like this, y’never know, right?” he says softly, and if he closes his eyes, and uses his left hand he can almost present the stone to life, can almost imagine Steve’s skin, Steve’s warmth, Steve’s scent.

“And you,” Bucky murmurs; “you _believed_ , so.” 

Bucky heaves a long sigh, and squints his eyes all the tighter, closes them all the firmer. 

“Please,” he begs the nothing, the everything, the only things left. “Please, give me a miracle. Bring him to me,” Bucky bows his head to line against the ‘G” in the middle of the stone.

“Take me to him,” Bucky gasps, the tears falling all over again, even when he thought he’d run dry, except: never.

He never does. Never will.

“ _Please_ ,” Bucky hiccoughs, wrecked as he always is, as he knew he’d be, the only thing he deserves, now.

Now: without.

“Please.” So small, so broken.

Is that what makes a prayer? What breaks one?

“It wasn’t to make you good.”

 _Take me to him_ , he’d asked. And yeah, maybe there are miracles. Maybe he’s better at this than he thought.

Because those words, on the breeze: Bucky’s heart goddamn _stops_.

“It was so that shield would go to the only worthy person in the world,” the voice is getting closer. The ground is softer than normal, but Bucky can feel it move, can hear something stepping, approaching. “So that burden, while I never wished it on you, would go to the only man I knew who was strong enough to hold it up in a world like this. In a time like _now_ ,”

“God,” Bucky gasps into the carved letter. “Oh, God. God, _please_.”

He doesn’t even know what he’s begging for. Just that he’s fucking _begging_.

“Buck—”

“ _Don’t_.”

He feels the shift of the air, catches movement in his peripheral vision. 

“Don’t, not if you aren’t real,” he says, low and dangerous and broken down the very middle, straight through the center of his chest: all flesh and bone rent wholly, beyond repair. “Not if you’re not here.”

Because he can’t. He _can’t_ —

The hand doesn’t stop. It reaches, and cups his cheek, eases Bucky away from the tombstone; the center of gravity lowers to meet him as the touch lifts Bucky’s chin to meet a gaze that shouldn’t be, that Bucky can’t forget.

This can’t be _real_

“Stevie?” He mouths without sound, and Steve’s thumb catches his tears, and Steve’s touch is warm. Bucky can see his heart beating at the side of his throat.

This _cannot_ be _real_.

“You’re…”

And Steve, steve always knew what Bucky was thinking. Always knew what Bucky couldn’t say. So Bucky’s breathless with what it says, and means, when Steve takes Bucky’s hands and brings them to _hiks_ chest now, instead, and breathes deep so Bucky can feel out the beat.

“For good,” Steve vows, eyes bright. “For always.”

And Bucky knows that heart, could never forget it. Knows it now. Know this is impossible.

Knows the world is impossible. Knows above all things that _they_ were born impossible, to live impossible, and die that way, perhaps, only to live impossible again.

 _Please_ , he’d begged.

 _Please_ , he begs again, now.

“How?”

Steve’s eyes grow haunted, run through a million unknowable things, and now Bucky reaches, brings Steve’s eyes back to his until they anchor, and oh. _Oh_.

He’s thought he’d lost that feeling. Thought this was gone for good. 

“It’s long,” Steve confesses, and it’s full of incredulity, and no small amount of pain; “and it’s complicated, and even for us it’s a little unbelieveable.”

And Bucky can believe that. Bucky can believe that the flesh beneath his hand is real.

Bucky _will_ believe it, if it means it doesn’t leave.

“But Buck, Bucky, I,” and Steve reaches up to cover Bucky’s hand upon his face, to grasp his touch close and hold it firm, to lace their fingers and make them a whole again. 

A _whole_. Fucking hell, but Bucky never even bothered to dream of feeling that, not ever again.

“I saw the end of, of,” Steve stammers, and clenches closed his eyes. “I saw the end.”

And Bucky knows: impossible.

But Steve is hurting, haunted, and so also: true.

“But Buck,” he rasps, turning just a touch to kiss Bucky’s knuckle, to give Bucky the moon and start his heart anew. 

“From the first moment to the last, we live. Not without hardship, and not without heartache,” Steve warns, and holds Bucky’s hand a little tighter. “But we always come back to each other,” he stares at Bucky; _into_ Bucky: “ _for_ each other.”

Bucky gasps, and knows he’s crying again, but he can’t look away from Steve, who’s crying to.

His heart is full. His heart is _here_.

Good _God_.

“And it’s you and me. It’s your chest on my chest at the end of the world, and we’re,” he runs his free hand down Bucky’s chest, and Bucky doesn’t know how he doesn’t collapse wholly into all that Steve is, suddenly—warm and moving and breathing and _living_ , and _fuck_ ; be doesn’t know how he doesn’t collapse into Steve beyond all other end. 

“We’re there,” Steve breathes, full of wonder, somehow, that outstrips all grief. “And I’m not afraid, because your heart’s on mine and every breath I take tastes of you, and I…”

He grabs for Bucky’s other hand, and laces that one close as well: one against the cheek. One atop the heart.

“I’m here,” Steve whispers, a promise.

“You’re here,” Bucky breathes right back, beyond belief and nonbelief: only overcome.

“And I’ll tell you everything, I swear it.”

“If you want to,” Bucky shakes his head, because he’ll be whatever Steve wants. “If you need to,” because he’ll be all the things that Steve needs.

But all that _he_ needs is Steve. All he’s ever needed has been Steve.

“I just want,” and now he does collapse, now he does hold fast and true against Steve—Steve, his _Steve_ —for all he’s fucking worth because Bucky is drained, Bucky is spent, and Bucky’s been living half a life for so fucking _long_.

“I just _need_ —”

“C’mon,” Steve breathes against the shell of his ear, bearing him up because he’s Steve, and he always would; always will. “Here’s not the place.”

And Steve wraps arms around him, and that’s how Bucky knows for certain where the cold’s always been, because it’s not for Steve’s warmth that he starts to feel the ice in him crack, but for just his touch, his presence.

His _life_

“Wait, just,” and where Steve’s leading him away from the shadows, from the graves, from the reminder of a death that doesn’t have to weigh him down anymore, maybe won’t ever _have_ to weigh him down again; as Steve leads him away, Bucky pulls back. “Just…”

And Bucky only thinks his legs deign to support his weight for the promise of Steve’s heart beneath his ear when he leans into Steve’s chest and just holds, just listens; just feels ‘til he _knows_.

And Steve stills, and wraps him tighter, holds him close all over again.

“Oh, Bucky,” Steve whispers, and huddles him near.

“It _is_ you,” Bucky rasps out, his tears soaking Steve’s shirt to the skin as he trembles, all sorrow and relief and overwhelming love, and Steve just holds him, because Steve knows. Steve _knows_.

“Merry Christmas, Buck,” Steve whispers, hands around him, in his hair, cradling the heart he’s always held; that only came back from the dead in the first place for him, so maybe it’s not so strange, so beyond believing, so impossible.

“Only because there’s you,” Bucky murmurs, barely croaks past all the feeling in his chest, his throat; because what’s Christmas, what’s _anything_ , if not for Steve? “Only because of _you_.”

Maybe it’s not a revelation that, from now to infinity, they come back to each other. _For_ each other.

Maybe that’s something they’ve always known.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com).


End file.
